Pumas keen for Golden Lions battle

SQUAD ANNOUNCEMENT: It might be a friendly, but the Pumas are eager to get their season off to a good start when they face the Golden Lions in a warm-up match in eMalahleni on Saturday.

The men from Mpumalanga will also face Western Province and the Sharks in away matches over the coming weekends.

Pumas head coach Brent Janse van Rensburg has been overseeing a long off-season of training and preparation. Janse van Rensburg said that the warm-up matches, against strong opposition, would allow the side to put into practice all the hard work on the training field.

"It’s a great opportunity for us to get some continuity and rhythm in a match context. It’s been a long pre-season but this is why the players train: to put together all the things they’ve been working on and test themselves against some very strong opponents," said Janse van Rensburg.

He added that the side has made good progress in meeting its main goals, which include building a strong culture, operational efficiency and discipline.

"I feel that the discipline in the squad has improved a lot, the work ethic is very strong and we’ve seen a lot of improvement from a conditioning perspective. As long as the players have the appetite to improve and grow as rugby players and human beings we’ll achieve what we want to achieve," Janse van Rensburg said.

The match on Saturday kicks off at the Witbank Stadium at 15.00 (13.00 GMT). Two curtain raisers will get the rugby action underway – the Witbank Vets against the Lowveld Barbarian Vets and the Highveld Pumas Under-20 versus the Lowveld Pumas U20.